THE SHOW:

It's been a while since I was a teenager and although I imagine the specifics of teen angst have changed, the basics stay the same. They never feel like they fit into their surroundings. They have trouble recognizing their place in the world and hate being told what to do. They feign courage but are secretly terrified of letting down their guard and allowing someone into their inner world. They roam in small tactical groups with weapons and special powers employed to dispatch demons, zombies and other creatures of the night in order to keep their city secure. That last statement may not be true of me and you but it definitely applies to the teen protagonists of Tokyo Majin.

Tokyo Majin is an AIC Spirits Studio production that was first released by ADV in the United States before being transferred to Funimation in 2008. This review is of the Funimation release featuring all 26 episodes across both seasons of the series. The show, directed by Shinji Ishihara, is loosely based on a series of video games that only saw the light of day within Japan. The first season consists of 14 episodes called the 'Dark Law Chapters'. The second season consists of 12 episodes which are split between the 'Martial Fist Chapters' and the 'Stars of Fate Chapters'.

As the show opens, we are presented with Tokyo in a state of chaos. People are being attacked in broad daylight by creatures that are sucking the very life out of them turning their bodies into dried out husks. To add insult to injury, the newly desiccated corpses aren't even getting a chance to appreciate the afterlife as they become reanimated by the time they get to the morgue. As you can imagine, this becomes highly undesirable to any human beings in their vicinity. Fortunately the city can fall back on the demon fighting talents of five students from Magami High. Using a combination of traditional martial arts and other unexplained powers, the students defeat the primary demon and breathe a sigh of relief. At the same time, elsewhere, two older martial arts masters attempt to attack a mysterious figure and his female companion with very little success and are forced to beat a hasty retreat. Did I mention that all this happens within the very first episode?

After that exhausting opening, the second episode sends us back in time by two months so we can see the formation of the teen monster squad. The catalyst turns out to be Tatsuma, a mysterious transfer student who joins Magami High in his senior year. As soon as he arrives on the scene, all the girls are talking about the new boy in school and all the boys want a piece of him. After a bit of friendly sparring with Kyouichi, the resident rebel, Tatsuma finds in him a kindred spirit and they quickly become friends. His next tussle doesn't end as pleasantly. He agrees to fight Yuuya, the captain of the wrestling team. Their fight doesn't go exactly as planned when a female demon interrupts the proceedings. In the process of defeating the demon, Tatsuma and Yuuya are exposed to a burst of energy along with Kyouichi and two other girls, Aoi and Komaki. This energy exposure gives them all a variety of special powers, which come in handy because they promptly form a tactical team defending Tokyo from additional demon attacks. I don't mean to sound flippant but the transition from average high school students to demon fighters happens a bit too quickly for me. I guess the whole 'great power, great responsibility' shorthand transcends all cultural boundaries.

Once the team is in place, the rest of the first season is spent battling monsters of the week while trying to solve the mystery of why they are appearing in the first place. This overarching mystery structures the season and becomes its driving force. It leads the team to Kozunu, an extremely powerful individual with a dark past of his own. By the end of the 14th episode, the team has learned valuable lessons about their powers and Kozunu has demonstrated that evil can emerge from tragic beginnings. This leads us seamlessly into the second season where the stakes are raised considerably higher. The team bumps heads with another group of skilled fighters known as the Martial Fist who seem to think our leads are up to no good. As soon as this story arc is resolved, our leads are really put through the wringer when one of them suffers through an attack on their family. The ensuing cascade of rage and fear carries the team into their final confrontation with the big baddie of the show.

I know it sounds like I've given away a great deal of the show's story but I assure you that it is so densely plotted that I've barely scratched the surface. Besides the five main lead characters, there's also quite a large supporting cast and three major villains including Kozunu. Talk about a crowded landscape. Besides Tatsuma, Yuuya and Kyouichi, the main team features Aoi, a quietly intelligent girl and Komaki, a short-tempered firecracker. All five characters are anime stereotypes to varying degrees but some are more successful than others. Tatsuma and Kyouichi were my favorites and brought a sense of camaraderie to their battles since they were frequently partnered together. Aoi was a challenging character since she went through some major changes over the course of the first season and generated much tension along the way. Yuuya and Komaki didn't fare as well since their characters seemed a bit more one-dimensional. However Yuuya's love for Komaki did add a nice touch to some of the quieter scenes in the show. Of the supporting cast, two characters, Kisaragi and Anko stood out. Kisaragi was Aoi's childhood friend and owner of an antiques store that turned into the team's base of operations. The burdens placed on him during his childhood set up some interesting conflicts later in the show. Anko was the mildly annoying comic relief who kept looking for gossip to spread around the school under the guise of investigative journalism.

Although my overall impression of the show was quite positive, I did have some reservations. I found that one of the show's aspects that I appreciated also seemed to be the root cause of my issues with it. I'm speaking of course about the furiously frantic pacing. On the one hand, I loved that the episodes kept driving towards the finale without wasting much time on tangential distractions. On the other hand, this approach also meant that confusion would occasionally set in, especially as minor characters would reappear in major roles without any explanation. This pacing issue is immediately apparent starting with the first episode. It throws us right into the action and introduces us to a large number of characters very quickly. It then flashes back two months to pick up the main plot of the show. Besides being incredibly confusing, in hindsight, I found this approach added absolutely nothing to the show. The finale of the show is also afflicted by a similar confusion. The 24th episode brings the show to a rousing finish with all the major plotlines mostly resolved and the main characters accounted for. This would be great except there are still two more episodes left to go. One of these episodes is used to establish Kyouichi's background while the other follows a theatrical production at Magami High. I refuse to accept these episodes as the true conclusion of the show and suggest that you consider this a 24 episode show with 2 OVA episodes tacked on at the end. My final quibble is a minor one but its worth mentioning. Over the course of two seasons, the show gives us three villains for the team to contend with. Two of these are supposed to be minor compared to the third major villain but the show doesn't really convey that properly. In comparison to the first two villains who are given sufficient face time to chilling effect, the third barely makes an appearance and doesn't seem very intimidating beyond being extremely powerful.

THE DVD:

Video:
The show was presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio with anamorphic enhancement. The 26 episodes of the show were spread across 4 single-sided discs which meant that there were 6-7 episodes on each disc. Given the large number of episodes per disc, I was pleasantly surprised by the sharp image. It was fairly clean with very few noticeable compression artifacts. The colors were slightly muted but this was in keeping with the dark tone of the material.

Audio:
The back of the DVD case claimed that the audio was available in Japanese Stereo and English 5.1 Dolby Surround however upon checking, I found the Japanese track to in fact be a 5.1 Surround mix as well. This typo must have been due to earlier releases having a Japanese Stereo mix. Given the Tokyo setting for the show and the Japanese background of the characters, I chose to watch the show with the Japanese audio track. The vocal cast was well chosen with all the participants fitting their characters quite nicely. This was an action packed show and thankfully I found the audio mix to be immersive in all the right ways. It really came alive during the numerous fight sequences with the surrounds being employed for maximum effect. Even during the more dramatic moments, the audio track was well balanced bringing forth details in background noise that really added to the overall effect. The English subtitles were clearly presented and were well written considering the dense metaphysical concepts they often had to convey. I also spot checked the English audio track and had no concerns with it.

Extras:
There were very few extras on this DVD release. The discs featured Clean Opening and Closing Animation along with DVD Credits and trailers for other shows that are Also Available from Funimation.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
Tokyo Majin was an action packed show with a frantically paced plot that led to a rousing finish. Although it featured a few too many characters, I found the central team of demon fighters quite entertaining even though they did occasionally come across as stock anime stereotypes. The frantic pacing did hurt the show a little bit leading to some confusion along the way but this was mostly forgiven when the kinetic action scenes were on display. Despite being slim on extra features, the clean visual presentation and lively audio mix made this an enjoyable show to follow. I had some minor issues with the show but on the whole it was fun and it comes Recommended.